High power optoelectronics based on synchronized high-current accelerators and lasers: Applications for nonlinear physics of dielectrics instabilities and higher education

Pulsed power electron and laser or X-ray beam induces various instabilities in a dielectric and it is possible to create such conditions in a natural physical experiment, when only one type of instability is prevalent and to study it in a clean form. The dielectric physics obtained new possibilities for the solution of a number complicated problems using high-current accelerators and lasers. Going forward in this direction having the purpose of experimental separation of different components of catastrophic processes, the author proposed to synchronize in one experimental set-up two or more sources of pulsed power beams and detecting apparatus. In this way some experimental apparatuses of high-power optoelectronics were designed and created during the last 15 years. They are composed of three basic modules synchronized with nanosecond and subnanosecond jitter in integral set-up: high-current-density electron accelerator, laser, and detecting instrumentation (optical, electrophysical, acoustic) of corresponding time-space resolution. The first set-up named SYNCHROJIN consists of the accelerator, generator of pulsed high voltage and electrophysical instrumentation. The second set-up includes the accelerator of the same type and laser interferometer. The third set-up named SYNCHROACCEL consists of two accelerators and optical instrumentation. And the fourth set-up named SYNCHROACCELASER consists of accelerator, picosecond laser YAG:Nd³⁺ and optical instrumentation of corresponding time resolution. These apparatuses arrived to be effective in 1) experimental investigation of dielectrics instabilities: brittle destruction, intense plastic bending, electrical and optical breakdown, critical power emission, 2) teaching the nonlinear physics of irreversible processes to undergraduates and graduates, based on natural experiments in the physical laboratory.